Sunday, October 26, 2014

THE FEMALE GAZE & BOLLYWOOD / ESSAY PUBLISHED IN HINDUSTAN TIMES’ BRUNCH SPECIAL

(This article by Anna
MM Vetticad was first published in the Hindustan Times’ Brunch Bollywood Special
Collectors’ Edition in the summer of 2013)

LOOK
WHO’S WATCHING

BOLLYWOOD HAS FINALLY DISCOVERED
THE FEMALE GAZE. ABOUT TIME TOO!

A
feminist’s grateful nod to John Abraham, Hrithik Roshan, Salman, Shah Rukh and the rest of their shirtless colleagues for acknowledging the female eye.

By
Anna MM Vetticad

It’s amazing how many sensible men are convinced
that women don’t have hormones. Maybe this conviction arises from a fear of
discovering that their mothers might sometimes be driven by unmentionable
female body parts; and worse, that their mothers might, just might, have had
sex to procreate.

But the reason lies largely in another possibility:
that few of these men source their information about women from women. What
follows are blanket assumptions: that women are not sexual beings and
therefore, that men could never be objects of heterosexual female longing.

The truth is far from it, and for a change the
Hindi film industry has made – and acknowledged – this discovery ahead of most
of our society.

Never before was Bollywood’s bow to the female gaze
more evident than in Vicky Donor in
2012. Making a guest appearance in the song Rum whiskey, actor-turned-producer John Abraham went beyond the by-now-common
scenario of a leading male star going shirtless to reveal a fabulous body.
There was John dancing when suddenly, for no apparent reason except that we
were expecting him to oblige us, he stood still and two ladies stripped him
topless. Other women hosed his bare torso, while he stretched out both arms as
if to say: ladies, do as you please with me.

Bless him! Up to the 1980s, female sexuality rarely
found overt expression in mainstream Hindi cinema beyond the “cabaret girl”.
Unlike the usually asexual or apologetically sexual heroine of those times, the
cabaret girl wore skimpy clothes, danced raunchy dances and even had sex. The
flipside was that she was always a supporting actress playing the male
villain’s sidekick or making a one-dance appearance; and while she provided eye
candy to male viewers, there was no male equivalent catering to a female
audience.

Though a sprinkling of heroes had taken off their
shirts on screen in previous decades, Sanjay Dutt and Sunny Deol in the 1980s
were among the earliest to be consistently body proud. It was their junior
Salman Khan though who pioneered persistent shirtlessness.

If the initial goal was admiration from male
viewers, these heroes got an unexpected bonus as many Indian women –
conditioned to be reticent about their appreciation of male good looks – began
to air their hormones in public.

The change was driven by economics. The number of
women in the workforce had been rising; this meant more women making their own
film-viewing decisions instead of depending on fathers, boyfriends and
husbands; it also meant more women confident enough to openly cheer at
great-looking, bare-bodied heroes.

And so by the turn of the century, when
fitness-conscious leading ladies became the norm, leading men followed suit.
Cabaret girls of the pre-1990s gave way to “item girls” and gradually, “item
boys”. Though male viewers remain Bollywood’s priority, women are now less
ignored.

So why has the male gaze historically ruled global
cinema? Simple. In a male-dominated society, it is assumed that a human being
is a man unless specified otherwise. In a film world led by male producers and
directors (all heterosexual or closet homosexual), it is similarly assumed
that the audience is male and heterosexual unless specified otherwise. Films
therefore have not presented men as objects of heterosexual female desire, the
assumption being that women are not keen on such visuals since the creators of
these films are not.

Today’s Hindi film heroes seem to disagree. Cameras
now embrace their every rippling muscle as lovingly as those lingering shots
that were once devoted to the female body. The female gaze on heroes is even
more pronounced in films by Bollywood’s handful of mainstream women directors.
Remember, it took a Farah Khan to put the national spotlight on SRK’s abs in
2007’s Om Shanti Om.

Sadly, the bodylicious hero’s success with women
has not yet led Bollywood’s production majors to realise that there’s a vast
female audience out there yearning for well-made women-themed mass
entertainers produced as lavishly as male-centric projects.

For today though, let’s just see our glass as half
full. For today, let’s bask in the pleasure that our modern-day male Helens
give us.

In fact, well-meaning activists unwittingly
perpetuate a new double standard when they lobby the Central Board of Film
Certification to clamp down on female-centric item numbers while ignoring the
“item”-isation of heroes. Objectification – whether of men or women – should
not be objectionable if the goal is to inoffensively please the gazer while
celebrating the sexuality of the gazee. It’s only when the “object” is degraded
and demeaned (as when Kareena Kapoor is equated with a “tandoori murgi” in Fevicol se),
that it becomes our responsibility to disapprove.

The equitable objectification of both genders today
is that rare ray of hope for women actors and audiences in an otherwise male-focused industry. This egalitarianism is epitomised by 2008’s Dostana which featured a bikini-clad
Shilpa Shetty while John Abraham posed in golden trunks and later
absent-mindedly scratched his bottom as he wandered around in briefs. In 2012,
Rani Mukerji spent the entire film Aiyyaa
fantasising about the delectable Prithviraj.

Women, you see, do have hormones after all. Just ask
our boys in Bollywood.

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About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad